Full Book Summary of The Well of Ascension
Check out my summary of Well of Ascension, the second book in the first Mistborn trilogy by Brandon Sanderson. Keep following the story of Vin after you finish the first book, Mistborn, with more world building, the unique magic system, and the members of Kelsier’s crew.
After the death of the Lord Ruler, Elend, Vin, and the crew try to build a healthy new society from the ashes of an empire built of fear and oppression of the skaa. But their new world is threatened by armies marching on their city and an ancient legend that haunts Vin.
If you haven’t heard the whole book yet, I highly recommend it as that’s the only way to get all the impressive details of the intricate plot. This is a summary of the main points to help you remember what happens before you read my full book review.
Part 1 The Heir of the Survivor
Chapters 1-3
One year after defeating the Lord Ruler, Elend Venture (now King Elend) is trying to defend Luthadel from his father’s army, and Vin is trying to figure out who’s following her with the help of the kandra OreSeur (previously Lord Renoux). One night, Vin fights off and kills seven Mistings and one Mistborn sent as assassins, and the Watcher (whoever’s following her) helps her from a nearby rooftop identify the Mistborn. Later that night, Vin sees a figure appear of the mist with only a vague shapes that disappears when she attacks.
Vin returns to Elend to tell him about the night and protect him from the Watcher who’s still out there. Then, Ham comes to tell them that the assassins are from the self-proclaimed king of the Western Dominance, Ashweather Cett.
Chapters 4-9
In the Eastern Dominance, Sazed is trying to investigate reports of mist appearing during the day and chaos due to the Lord Rulers guards disappearing. Marsh shows up to bring Sazed to stronghold of the Steel Inquisitors and high obligators that’s suddenly been abandoned. On the way, Marsh convinces Sazed to return to Luthadel after their errand.
Back in Luthadel, Vin gets a dog’s body for OreSeur to take the form of to spy and is trying to a new aluminum alloy, duralumin, that be the forgotten metal but nothing seems to happen. Ham, Dockson, Clubs, and Spook all return to the city to help Elend and Vin. One night while chasing the Watcher, Vin discovers that burning duralumin while burning another metal greatly enhances the other metals ability for a short time.
Chapters 10-11
Another army shows up outside the city wall, and Vin sees Breeze riding a horse away from the army. Inside the city walls, Breeze tells them that, unbeknownst to all of them, he’s been acting as an advisor to Ashweather Cett, and Breeze convinced him to march his army for another siege of Luthadel. This created a standoff between the two armies and the city to give them more time to figure out what to do.
Back at Elena’s palace, Vin and Elend find a set of bones hidden in a closet. OreSeur tells them that another kandra did it, so one of Elend’s staff is now an imposter kandra.
Part 2 Ghosts in the Mist
Chapters 12-16
Marsh and Sazed make it to the completely abandoned stronghold of the Inquisitors to finally only a Terris text in metal that Sazed copies down.
In Luthadel, Vin tries to confront the being made of mist, but it disappears. Elend, Dockson, Ham, Breeze and Spook come up with a plan to secretly make the two armies fight each other by cutting off their supplies and using sly politics. At the end of the meeting, a Terriswoman who says she’s here because of Sazed comes to talk to Elend alone.
The woman, Tinkwyl, offers her help to train Elend to be a better king so the people and politicians respect him. She starts instructing him to dress differently, talk with more authority, have better posture at all times, and be seen by his people among other things.
Chapters 17-21
A messenger, Zane, from Elend’s father, Straff Venture, comes to set up a meeting, and Vin recognizes him as the Mistborn Watcher who follows her at night. That night, Zane spars with Vin again, before heading back to the Venture camp. Zane is Elend’s half-brother, but Zane hates their father Straff and hears constantly hears a voice telling him to kill Straff.
On the way back to Luthadel, Sazed happens on a village where all the Skaa have died because they won’t go outside into the mist that killed a few and stayed during the day. A few days later, Sazed runs into an army of Koloss, extremely aggressive and ferocious giants that never stop growing, that capture him. They bring him to the nobleman Jastes Lekal (once an idealistic young nobleman with Elend) who’s leading them, and Sazed makes a deal with him to bring the message of an alliance to Elend in exchange for atium.
In Luthadel, Lord Cett’s daughter Allrianne shows up, obviously in love with Breeze, and asking for asylum from her father’s camp. Elend allows her to stay to buy more time with Lord Cett.
Chapters 22-27
Sazed makes it back to Luthadel to tell them about the koloss and the mist, but Vin is the only one who believes him about the mist. As conditions in the besieged city get more dire with possible separate armies attack, Vin and Elend go out to meet Straff in his camp. Elend had planned to act weak in order to make an alliance against Cett, but Straff sees through his plan.
Straff threatens to kill Elend and take control of Luthadel by morning, but Elend convinces him to be afraid of Vin. After Vin and Elend leave, Straff tells Zane their new plan is to kill Vin first before attacking the city. Back in the city, Elend receives a letter from the new Assembly that he’s been disposed as king because of the political turmoil.
Part 3 King
Chapters 28-32
Even though the group tries to convince him out of it, Elend insists to accept the Assembly’s decision because even the king isn’t above the law now. But he does start planning how to get the position back. Vin discusses with Sazed her theory that the mist is the Deepness that needs to be defeated again.
At the next assembly meeting, Philen Frandeu, a corrupt merchant in the Assembly, nominates Lord Cett as the next king of Luthadel. If elected as king, Cett promises to defend the city with his army, but the skaa will go back to being slaves. The Assembly agrees to let Cett live inside the city with some troops and vote on king in two weeks.
Chapters 33-38
Vin is still trying to figure out the kandra spy and thinks it may be the captain of the guard and Ham’s second in command, Captain Demoux. Later that night, Zane meets her to tell her that the koloss army is close and that Straff sent him to kill her after he admits to being Elend’s brother. He offers for both of them to leave together to be free of being used as people’s tools or be the bad guys, but Vin still wants to stay with Elend.
At the Assembly vote for king, assassins interrupt to try and kill Elend and Cett, but Vin kills off the ones by Elend. The vote continues elsewhere, and Elend is surprised to find that the Assembly vote for Lord Penrod, a nobleman Elend respects but was not expecting. He figures this is some part of a political game he hasn’t figured out yet.
Part 4 Knives
Chapters 39-44
Straff meets with King Penrod to discuss transferring the city over to Straff in their deal and how to find the atium. And Straff decides Zane has to die because Zane keeps trying to poison him and let Straff’s other Allomancer kids die in the Assembly assassination attempt. When Vin wakes days after the attack, Zane is there to tell her that Straff made the deal with Penrod, and he leaves her some atium.
Elend goes to visit Jastes Lekal in the koloss army that arrived outside of Luthadel, and, even though Jastes won’t retreat, Elend learns he controls the koloss by paying them. Zane convinces Vin to attack Cett with him to keep safe, but when Cett is cornered, Vin can’t bring herself to kill him. The next morning Cett and his army start marching away.
Chapters 45-48
Vin is horrified that she killed a lot of people, and the next day tells Elend she has to go north to find the Well of Ascension. Sazed also thinks Vin is the Hero of Ages meant to defeat the Deepness, so he devises a plan with some of the crew to get Vin, Elend, and Spook out of the city. That night, Zane comes to convince Vin to leave with him, but she refuses when Vin realizes Zane doesn’t actually trust her when Elend does.
Zane starts attacking her for real and reveals OreSeur was killed and replaced by Zane’s own kandra spy who’s been the dog the whole time. After a tough battle, Vin kills Zane, and runs to Elend who brings her to Sazed for healing.
Vin asks Sazed to marry her and Elend, which she admits she should have done a long time ago, and Sazed agrees. Then, Sazed convinces Vin and Elend to leave the city in the morning with Spook and Tindwyl to the Terris mountains to find the Well of Ascension.
Part 5 Snow and Ash
Chapters 49-52
After Tindwyl refuses to leave with them, Elend, Vin, and Spook leave the city as Allrianne tags along to find her father’s army even though Straff’s men try and fail to stop them. Straff has his army leave, so the koloss will attack before he plans to return to ruined city to take it. The koloss do start attacking, and the crew set up to hold the city.
In the forest, Vin finds Jastes and his guards have followed them because he lost control of the koloss. Elend kills him for what he did, and Spook tells Vin and Elend about Sazed plan. Suddenly, Vin feels the mists pulling her back south and, realizing the Well is in Luthadel, she heads back.
Chapters 53-55
Straff has his army come back to the hills outside Luthadel as does Cett’s army, convinced by Allrianne who wants to help Breeze. Once the koloss finally break through a few of the city gates, Clubs is killed, and Sazed is about to be when Vin shows up. After hours of fighting koloss, Vin is exhausted, but she figures out that she can control the koloss by burning duralumin and Soothing them.
Vin has the koloss under control when she finds Sazed, Ham, and Breeze who tell her that Clubs, Tindwyl, and Dockson have been reported as dead. The next morning, Vin leads the koloss against Straff’s army with Cett joining Vin’s side, spurred on by Allrianne. Vin kills Straff and his generals, so his army eventually surrenders and swears allegiance to Elend.
Part 6 Words in Steel
Chapters 56-End
On the way back to the city, Elend and Spook run into a large camp of Terris people who are headed to Luthadel because Steel Inquistors attacked their capital and killed all the Keepers. When Elend makes it back, Vin takes him, Spook, and Ham to the Lord Ruler’s old abandoned palace where Vin finds a false wall concealing a hidden stairway down to caverns. Back at the palace, Sazed is reviewing his research on the Well when the mist spirit appears and leads him to the old palace where Vin is.
When Sazed arrives, Marsh appears trying to kill him even though Marsh says he doesn’t know why, but Sazed is saved by Ham. In the caverns, Vin and Elend find the Well, but the mist spirit appears and stabs Elend. When Vin submerged herself in the Well, she feels the power, including to save Elend, but instead gives up the power like the prophecies say to defeat the Deepness.
Suddenly, Vin knows she has done something wrong and feels a voice in her head saying they’re free. Next to the dying Elend, the mist spirit gets Vin to feed Elend a strange metal bead in the cavern, and Elend starts burning pewter for strength to heal.
Epilogue
Sazed returns to the Steel Inquistors abandoned stronghold to confirm his suspicions that the metal Terris text is different than his copy. The metal says the Well holds some evil creature that must not be released and has been able to change the prophecies. Back in Luthadel, Elend awakens to find he’s now a Mistborn and the emperor.
Read the Full Book Review
Now that you’re reminded of the main points of the book, read my full review including book recommendations and my star rating. It’s a great story as a whole that you should read in it’s entirety if you haven’t already.
If you need a refresher or just haven’t already, go back and read the summary and book review for the previous book, Mistborn. Then, you can move on to the next book, Hero of Ages, the third book in the Mistborn series.
